New Mac App Beamer Lets You Drag Videos and Play on Apple TV

Related: Apple TV, Mac, Streaming, Beamer

New app alert - Beamer! Drag any movie file onto Beamer and it will start streaming wirelessly to your TV with Apple TV instantly.

Unlike Screen Mirroring, Beamer is specifically optimized for video playback at the highest quality. What's more, you can pause, forward and rewind using the Apple TV remote. No need to get up from the couch.

Which video formats are supported?
We support all common formats and resolutions. You don't need to convert your videos. AVI, MOV, MKV, MP4, WMV and FLV files will play just fine.

You can download the trial to test any obscure file format you may have. We aim to offer smooth playback for all movie files on all supported Macs. If you have a video that doesn't play well, we'd love to hear about it.

Why use Beamer and not Screen Mirroring?
Screen Mirroring over AirPlay works great in general, but the video quality is a lot less reliable than when you're streaming a movie using Beamer (or iTunes for that matter). The video stutters every now and then. You may find this acceptable when watching a YouTube video, but it's very distracting when you're immersed in your favorite film or TV-series.

Beamer offers smooth playback and consistent quality, because it builds a buffer of video to prevent stuttering.

Beamer also enables playback control (pause, fast-forward, etc.) using the Apple TV remote and you can still use your Mac for other tasks while the movie is playing.

Can Beamer play DVDs and DVD-rips?
Beamer currently has no support for DVDs and DVD-rips. However, you can play the individual VOB files within the VIDEO_TS folder.

Are subtitles supported?
We've added support for both embedded subtitles and subtitle files in version 1.5. Supported formats are: SSA/ASS, SubRip (SRT), SubViewer and MicroDVD. Your Apple TV software needs to be updated to version 5.1 or later for subtitles to work.